The phone call from a mobile in Ethiopia was vague: did I have resilience, a sense of humour, journalism experience? I was in my English garden at the time, and getting a phone call from the UN in Addis Ababa while I was deadheading the dahlias in the early summer of 2004 was surreal. The previous June I had applied for a public information and media job with the United Nations in Namibia, got it, but then turned it down. More on What Blair And Geldof Didn’t See in Ethiopia